An animation about what science says about empathy

These animations about historical processes, fascinate me. Many of them on Youtube.
This one talks about empathy, what we know about it thanks to the fields of psychology and brain research. Empathy is to me one of the most interesting concepts of all.

I´m not completely sure I get the point they make about the African couple being parents to all of us. Making the bible story …scientific…?
It moves very fast, this video. I need to watch it again to grasp more of it.

It doesn´t have to be all true and correct, though, to be of value to me. There is a lot of great information packed here, that´s for sure. And I find it fun to watch and listen and follow the drawings.

The drive to belong. An empathic drive.
We show solidarity with our compassion.
Empathy is the opposite of Utopia. Because it´s based on the acknowledgement of mortality.

Many big sentences here. And mind teasing drawings, and chains of points, building a theory that is very interesting I reckon.

Like he says, is it really that hard to see us connect our empathy to a single race writ large in a single biosphere?
We need to broaden our sense of identity, to start thinking of humanity as one extended family.

Comments

2 thoughts on “An animation about what science says about empathy”

Yeah, I’ve seen this one before and I like it too. I found it easier to absorb if I listened to it without seeing the images. The drawings, although amazing, I found distracting.

The idea of us all being descended from a single man and woman is a contentious one, and probably not correct the way it is generally stated. Our ancestors almost certainly interbred with Neanderthals, who were a different genetic line to modern humans, though how different they were is uncertain, and they could possibly have originated from the same group of human-like apes in Africa that modern humans did. We may also be getting it backward. Humans are terribly xenophobic, and notoriously don’t like to breed with those who are different from them. This xenophobia alone could be enough to restrict our genetic diversity over thousands of years to make it appear that we all come from a single pair, because we killed of all those who are different. We don’t even need to actively kill them off — just refusing to mate with them is enough to seriously deplete our genetic diversity and give one group dominance over all others.

The idea that empathy could save us all is one that I like. If we can extend it too all life on Earth (the biosphere) then we might survive the dangers now facing us. If not, then we might be seriously screwed.

Yes, it´s easier to either close one´s eyes, or to turn down the volume and just take in the drawings. But a fun challenge to try and absorb it all at the same time, quite demanding but still kind of fun. 🙂

I too like the final point made. That extended identity, feeling related to all humanity plus all animals and plants, may be our best chance for survival.

The fittest. Fitting together with. The rest of ecology. Humanity is like a loose screw in the great wheel of life. A dangerous faulty part. (This last paragraph is my own thoughts, not from RSA).